1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to enterprise asset management, and particularly to the definition and use of Configuration Standards for compliance checking in an environment.
2. Description of Background
Configuration and change management are the core control processes within IT Service Management and are responsible for configuration control and the minimization of adverse effects of changes within complex IT environments. One aspect of configuration management is to perform regular audits of the IT environment. Such audits include a check that components of the environment (i.e., configuration items) comply with established standards or policies. Examples of standards or policies include:
All Linux™ computer systems owned by Department 35X on which DB2™ runs should have a minimum 4 GB of memory;
All installations of software package X must be at version 6 or higher;
All DB2™ instances must have a designated DBA.
The output of these regular audits is a report of any compliance violations detected. This report can be used for proactive problem management to identify problems that require remediation. Currently, however, there are no standard methods for defining Configuration Standards that would enable efficient compliance testing.
What would be desirable is to way to define Configuration Standards in a manner such that they can be readily maintained and used for regular compliance checking.